by Jo Verity
‘Bistro B’ was trendy and expensive. Just the sort of place that Jenny would approve of. The waitress made a great show of finding them a table, although there were only half a dozen other people eating. She plonked them in the far corner, as though they weren’t glamorous enough to deserve a window seat. The chairs were made of brushed aluminium, cold to the touch and uncomfortable. Cutlery clattered on the plastic-topped tables, bouncing sharp sounds off the reflective surfaces.
Whenever Anna ate out, she used a bowl of home-made soup as a ‘value-for-money’ indicator. At ‘Bistro B’ it was the cheapest thing on the menu at over five pounds. She could make gallons of the stuff for that. Celia dithered for five minutes then chose soup, too. Eventually, when it came, it was over-salted, with a metallic aftertaste. The waitress bullied Celia into ordering a glass of white wine but Anna held out for a glass of tap water.
As soon as Celia started talking Anna’s mind began wandering, following the bus to Brecon. Arthur had probably opened his parcel and maybe Maddy and Taliesin (‘Rupert’ would be so much easier) were discussing their visit. She would call in at the library and look for something by Charles Leighton. Don’t they always say that novels invariably have an autobiographical element? It might be very informative. She must speak to Flora this evening and tell her all about Arthur.
Celia’s face came back into focus. Her mouth was no longer moving but her eyebrows were raised, in anticipation of a reply. Anna, desperate to conceal her inattention, peered over to the far corner of the room and craned her neck. ‘Sorry, Celia. I thought I recognised someone. Carry on.’
‘That’s it really. I go back for the results next week. But Mark doesn’t think it can be diabetes. His mother had it and her symptoms were completely different.’
How could she sit there daydreaming while poor Celia poured out her troubles? She was appalled at herself and overcompensated with a volley of questions, asking how long she’d been unwell and about her symptoms. When Celia repeated it all, she was amazed that anyone would bother the doctor with such a vague list. Headache, restlessness, weight loss, insomnia. She almost asked, ‘Is that all?’ Throughout the twenty years of their friendship Celia had worried about her health, often with good reason. Her stomach-ache had been appendicitis. The lump in her leg had been a thrombosis. The stabbing pains had been gallstones. Perhaps she shouldn’t dismiss her fears too flippantly.
Celia started to cry. ‘And another thing, I keep crying all the time.’
Anna patted her hand. ‘Come on, let’s have something else to eat. A bit of a treat.’
They ordered a cappuccino and large slice of chocolate cake, each. ‘I love being with you, Anna, you always cheer me up.’ As she spoke, her narrow fingers shredded a tissue into small twists.
Anna wanted to apologise for all the times that she’d cut her friend’s conversation short or taken avoiding action. ‘Well, you’ve eaten all your lunch. That’s a good sign, isn’t it?’ She sounded like an encouraging nanny.
Celia gave a watery smile. ‘The trouble is, it’s raised … issues.’
‘Issues?’
‘With Judith. They suggested that she should be tested too, in case it’s something hereditary.’
Anna waited a moment, trying to understand Celia’s logic. ‘But surely…’
‘I told them she’s adopted. They said it is possible that Judith’s inherited some medical condition. Not from us, of course. Anyway, it’s unsettled her. She’s talking about contacting her mother. Her birth mother.’
Anna wasn’t sure whether this announcement called for her sympathy. ‘Judith’s such a sensible girl, Cee. And she adores you and Mark. It won’t make a blind bit of difference, whatever she finds out.’ But how could that be true? What if Judith were to discover that her birth mother was a painter or a prostitute? Or a woman who detested pink.
Celia shook her head. ‘It’ll change things. I know it will.’
The café was busier now and the harsh acoustics were making conversation uncomfortable. Her eardrums flexed with the pressure of the reverberating sounds. The waitress cleared the plates and cups from the table, removing their excuse to linger. They paid the bill and left.
On the way back to the car Celia apologised for monopolising the conversation. ‘I haven’t even asked about you,’ she said. ‘Madeleine looked well. And her young man seems very nice.’
‘Yes. They’re fine,’ she said. ‘We’re all fine.’
They came to Anna’s favourite shop. ‘Can we have a quick look around? I love their stuff.’
The shop smelled of incense and unwashed wool and the sound of pan-pipes filled the air. There were shelves of crudely fashioned pottery, cases of chunky silver jewellery. Wind chimes jangled softly in the draught from the open door. She glanced back at Celia, who stood in the middle of the shop looking nervous, as if evil spirits were abroad and she was in mortal danger. The Peruvian jumpers would make her itch. The heavy bracelets and necklaces would weigh her down. The incense would bring on her asthma. And weren’t those pagan images on the pottery?
Anna spotted a crushed-velvet jacket on the rail, light catching the nap of the fabric, bringing it to life like a field of long grass when the wind riffles through it. There was a geometric pattern embroidered in darker green at the cuffs and across the yoke, and it flared out around the hem. One huge button at the base of the lapels fastened it. And it was reduced to half price.
She held it out to Celia. ‘Isn’t it fantastic? Try it on, Cee. It would look wonderful with your skin colour.’
Celia retreated. ‘I never wear green. It’s unlucky.’
The woman behind the counter, who had been quietly polishing the silver bangles, leant across and confided in a strong West-Midlands accent, ‘I used to be like that until one day I thought, “How can a colour change your luck, you stupid cow”. It’s the same with Friday the thirteenth. Everyone in the whole world can’t be unlucky on the same day, can they?
Celia looked uncertain.
‘Go on. Try it,’ Anna cajoled, helping her out of the pink fleece and into the jacket. The flare of the hem emphasised Celia’s trim figure. If she had put weight on, it was hard to detect. The pine-forest green complimented her pale skin and blonde hair. The garment had transformed her from a pink rabbit into a Scandinavian princess. Celia stared at herself in the long mirror, turning this way and that, the folds of the fabric swinging from side to side.
‘It is nice … but I’m not sure.’
‘You look fantastic. Tell you what,’ said Anna. ‘You take it and if you change your mind, or Mark doesn’t approve, I’ll buy it off you.’
While she put away the groceries, she told Tom about Celia’s troubles. ‘Poor Celia,’ he said. ‘She does have rotten luck.’
Then she went on to tell him about the jacket. ‘She wears such frumpy clothes. They remind me of stuff from a catalogue. I thought it would do her good to break away from polyester. She looked almost up to date.’
‘Not everyone wants to look like a refugee from a jumble sale, Anna. Anyway, I always think Celia looks fine just as she is. Nice and feminine. Don’t bully her.’ Tom turned back to his library book.
12
The men were planning a trip to the Centre for Alternative Technology at Machynlleth. When they lived in Bristol Tom had experimented, on a very small scale, with solar panels. They had always composted their kitchen waste but at Pen Craig there was an opportunity to take sustainability a great deal further. He was evangelistic about it and saw this trip as an opportunity to convert the others.
‘Saving the planet is a “man thing” then?’ Sally asked, when they met in the summerhouse to discuss their route.
‘We could all go, if you girls are keen. Take a couple of cars. Make a day of it.’ Mark looked enthusiastic.
Sally shook her head. ‘You are joking. If I’m taking a day off, I’d rather sit in the sun with a book.’
‘I think they’re looking forward to a lads’ day out.’ An
na had noticed the look of dismay cross Tom’s face.
What was this ‘day off’ Sally was on about? She was self-employed and it was entirely up to her how much work she did and when she did it. Underlying her remark was the implication that the rest of the women had nothing meaningful to do. Anna didn’t feel non-employed. Keeping the garden in trim took several hours each day, and now that her wheel and kiln were installed she intended to make up for the lost months.
Anna was the only one of ‘the girls’ up and about when the expedition left. It had rained earlier, purifying the May morning. A day-moon hung, a translucent silvery ghost in the cloudless sky. She shut her eyes and took a deep breath and, catching the faintest hint of wood-smoke, shivered at the terrifying perfection.
To make the most of the early start she would blitz the household chores and be in the vegetable garden by nine o’clock. Then, when it grew too hot and she’d had enough physical exercise, she could retreat to the outhouse and get on with her project.
Madeleine had contacted them several times since her visit. She’d phoned the other evening to tell them that Taliesin’s father had invited them to move in with him. His house was far too big for one and they could have a whole wing of the place to themselves. Arthur would have a huge garden to play in and could start, immediately, at the local school.
Tom was affronted that his daughter was prepared to live under another man’s roof. Anna reminded him, gently, that they didn’t have room for three (soon to be four) additional people at Number Four. They should be relieved that Maddy was going to be safe and comfortable during the latter stages of her pregnancy.
‘I don’t like to think of a child of mine sponging off anyone,’ he said. ‘She’s our responsibility.’
But she wasn’t, was she? She was over eighteen and Tom was no longer the man in her life.
She put away the vacuum cleaner and headed for the garden. At this time of year plants were capable of growing six inches overnight, and each morning something new had sprung up. Today it was a fine crop of dandelions. She picked one, milky sap oozing from its hollow stem. Dandelion. Dentes du lion. As a child she’d pictured a ferocious lion with bright yellow teeth and had been perplexed when her know-all cousin had explained that the jagged-edged leaves were actually the teeth.
As she pushed the hoe between the rows, Eric joined her. The unkempt plot and the untidy borders near the ‘High Trees’ front door had irritated Jenny, so the Redwoods had taken on a gardener – Eric. The physicality of the work lent it intimacy and, at first, she had been uncomfortable when he was there, working so close to her. Now, after a month or so, they were getting used to each other and tended the gardens in companionable silence. He was a reserved man, with a fund of horticultural knowledge which he was happy to share but only when consulted.
Bill, too, was showing an interest in horticulture and had thrown himself into clearing the adjacent plot. Sally was mystified, but nevertheless delighted, that he had found something to get him out from under her feet. Anna wasn’t so pleased. But today, with Bill off to look at windmills, she could relax.
Sally waylaid her outside the summerhouse as she was returning the tools. ‘Hi there. Elevenses?’
‘Wouldn’t want to stop you reading.’ Anna’s dig went unnoticed.
‘You look very rosy-cheeked.’
‘I’m sweating. A couple of hours in the sun and I’m pooped.’
‘Perhaps we should reinstate the pool.’
‘Please, not the pool.’
They took deckchairs outside and sat down to drink their coffee.
‘Where did you say Emily is now?’
‘Sydney. At least that’s where she was on Sunday night. I’m trying not to think about it. I can’t believe she chucked it all up for that Dominic person. And now he’s dumped her. It’s so predictable.’
‘Is she on her own?’
‘No, thank God. She’s teamed up with a couple of Dutch girls, or so she says.’
This particular corner of the garden was a sun-trap and Sally put up the huge canvas parasol, dragging her chair into its shade. Her face and plump arms were already a mass of freckles. Anna stayed in the sun, taking off her boots and socks and rolling up the legs of her trousers. They recalled teenage days, when it was de rigeur to have an even tan.
‘We got it into our heads that the best stuff to use was olive oil. We used to baste ourselves, set my mother’s kitchen timer and turn over every ten minutes, like meat roasting on a spit.’ Sally wrinkled her nose. ‘We smelled disgusting and the oil left a yellow tide mark around the bath.’
Anna hadn’t seen much of Sally since the trip to Bristol. It would be useful to discover how things stood between her and Bill, but after an hour of chat she was none the wiser. Sally was perfectly friendly and, if anything, slightly less acerbic than usual. Perhaps she, too, was relieved that Bill was a hundred miles away.
In the early days there had been regular meetings to discuss communal issues. From the outset they had foresworn rotas but there were certain practical issues which needed to be sorted out, if things were to run smoothly. Recycling. Care of boundary fences. What to do with the two fields. These meetings soon became a forum for grumbling discord and they were abandoned.
Anna was disappointed to see how her friends appeared to be replicating their former suburban lifestyles. They might as well be living on the outskirts of Manchester or Nottingham. Her current pottery project was intended as a gentle reminder of the reasons for the move to Wales.
‘Mum, what you lot need is a logo. Or an acronym,’ Flora had said when she told her about it. Flora loved to play with words and in a few minutes came up with a suggestion. ‘How about PARADISE? People At Retirement Age Delighting In Supporting Eachother. You can cheat on the “eachother”.’
‘It’s not strictly accurate though, is it? Only Bill’s completely retired.’
‘But that’s what you all hope lies ahead and you did say that these pots are intended as heirlooms.’
The acronym grew on her. All the mugs, plates, bowls and jugs would carry the inscription ‘PARADISE’ and the name of the recipient. When she let Tom in on her secret, he’d not been very keen. ‘Sounds a bit contrived to me. They probably won’t appreciate it.’
But she decided to press ahead and, within a couple of weeks, had finished the complete set of mugs. Each one was unique, colour and shape reflecting the essence of its recipient. She felt most satisfied with Celia’s. As part of the anti-pink campaign, she’d plumped for pale turquoise with dark greenish-grey decoration. Strangely enough, Tom’s had given her the most problems. It had come out black and straight-sided. Sombre and pure. She wasn’t sure she liked it.
An afternoon of doing what she loved best stretched ahead. She took out her clay-spattered sketches, turning to the pages covered with drawings of bowls. They should be the right size to hold cereal or soup. Useful, beautiful and singular.
Folding back the thick plastic which held the clay and kept it from drying out, she saw a small object wrapped in a piece of black bin liner pressed lightly into the clay. It might have been an explosive device but, without a second thought, she opened it. The black plastic concealed a velvet-covered box. The box contained a pair of earrings made from Venetian glass beads. Even in the gloom, she could see that they were exquisite and exactly what she would have chosen for herself. How did Bill know that she loved Venetian glass? Because they had to be from Bill.
She re-sealed the pack of clay and returned to the house. It was impossible to work now. Simply by holding the earrings in her hand, she felt herself in league with Bill. How had he imagined she would explain them to Tom? They were obviously too expensive for her to have bought for herself, on the spur of the moment. She locked the back door and ran up to the bedroom before taking the earrings from her pocket. The sunlight, shining through them, revealed the blues and greens of the Adriatic. She held them high, allowing them to swing on the gold wire as they might swing from her ears.
She filled the bath and sank into it, looking down at her body lapped by the soft Welsh water. Her skin tanned easily and a white shadow marked where her watch circled her wrist. When she lay in bath, she came nearest to a state of transcendental meditation. Maddy was into that sort of thing and had once tried to describe the process. ‘When you stop thinking about one thing and start thinking about another, there’s a split second when your mind is completely empty of thought. All you have to do is enlarge that emptiness and hang on to it.’ But the flotsam of life jostled in to fill the space faster than she could extend it. In it all crowded, babies, fathers, guns and earrings.
When she woke, her fingers were wrinkled and the water was cool. In her dream she had been delivering leaflets, door to door, down a street of terraced houses. Then a lorry had passed and shed its load of empty milk bottles on top of her. It hadn’t hurt a bit.
Wrapped in a towel, she returned to the bedroom and checked the time. She’d been asleep for forty minutes. Even with the window ajar, the sun had warmed the bedroom and it smelled of dust and lavender. The earrings lay on her bedside table and she couldn’t resist hooking them into her ears. Then, standing before the long mirror, she let the bath towel drop to the floor. Where her hair escaped from the combs, it rioted into curls. Her skin graded through the colours of eggshells, from the nut brown of her hands to the creamy white of her breasts. The fuzz of pubic hair matched her curls, grey and black. Silvery stretch marks wandered like snail trails across her thighs. Her hips were broader and her breasts hung lower than they had, but she was fifty-one, after all, and looked considerably more voluptuous than she did thirty years earlier.
The air, moving over her flesh, roused her. At first she walked on tip-toe, as if to make herself less conspicuous. Then she became bolder, planting her heels down firmly. She went down the stairs and wandered from the living room to Tom’s office, sitting at his drawing board and leaning her breasts on the cool tracing paper.